'Code Red': Paramedic union says lack of ambulances a near-daily reality in Toronto

ARCHIVE: T.O. ran out of ambulances Monday night Toronto paramedics says the city was without an available ambulance Monday night, with wait times as long as 28 minutes in some cases.

Ambulance shortages in Toronto have become a near-daily reality, the city's paramedic union said after issuing a 'Code Red' on Monday.

“It's only a matter of time before somebody [...] dies waiting on an ambulance,” Mike Merrimen, Chair at Toronto Civic Employees’ Union Local 416 paramedics’ unit, told CP24 on Tuesday afternoon.

A day earlier, the union had shared a post to social media, alerting the public to a lack of transport ambulances available in the city – a situation dubbed ‘Code Red.’

“[An] ambulance for an unconscious elderly person was over 28 minutes away and Peel Paramedic Services had to be called in to help,” the union wrote in the post, shared to X.

The union also issued a 'Code Red' in early October, claiming the service was requesting aid from neighbouring municipalities.

READ MORE: Toronto paramedic union issues 'code red' after it says no ambulances available in the city

When reached for comment, the City of Toronto, overseeing Toronto Paramedic Services, told CTV News it was aware of the union’s posts.

“Toronto Paramedic Services does not track data classified as ‘Code Red,’” spokesperson Dineen Robinson said in a written statement.

Typically, the city said Tuesday, the current 911 wait time sits at an average of 30 seconds. Robinson said there are, however, periods of time when ambulance availability is low in Toronto.

“During these busier periods, paramedics are diverted from lower priority calls to respond to higher priority calls,” she said, adding that calls deemed of higher priority “will always be responded to first.”

Merrimen, on the other hand, said a lack of available transport ambulances is becoming a near-daily reality in the city.

“I'm getting from my members that this is probably happening close to daily,” he said.

For the most part, the chair said the union aims to avoid alerting the public to ‘Code Reds’ on a daily basis, despite that being the current reality.

“For the most part, we don't want to send out a ‘Code Red’ [publicly] every day – we don't want the public, politicians, or anybody else to become immune to it,” Merrimen said, adding that the union uses the term “sparingly.”

In an interview with CP24 earlier in October, the union said that in 2021, the most recent year with available data, the service faced ‘Code Red’ situations 1,139 times.

When speaking to reporters Tuesday, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow pointed to offload delays at hospital emergency departments across the region as one cause of the lack of ambulances.

“The emergency rooms don’t have room, [...] as a result, ambulance folks cannot offload and they are just sitting there waiting,” Chow said.

The problem isn’t something the city can solve alone, the mayor said, pointing to a lack of municipal control over hospitals.

A spokesperson for the minister of health said in a written statement that the province has invested an additional $51 million over three years in the Dedicated Offload Nursing Program, including nearly $9 million to Toronto Paramedic Services through this year's budget.

"Should any paramedic service want to increase their budget, the province will be there to match that request," the statement reads.

While Merriman acknowledged hospital delays as a problem facing Toronto medics, the union attributes the problem to “a major staffing issue” within the service.

“I've been a medic for almost 33 years now and we've always had [...] offload delays,” Merrimen said.

The difference now is, after “decades of not hiring to meet the demand,” as put by the union chair, the unit doesn’t have the staffing levels needed to field daily calls. Ultimately, the service needs more people, he said.

“This blame game of continually blaming the hospital as the hospitals [...] is not servicing the citizens of Toronto,” Merrimen said. “Nobody wins with the blame game.”